A year ago today, my youngest sister -- a girl I'd never met, yet was my sister anyhow -- was killed in a car accident. It is a day I haven't forgotten, obviously, and it cast an ominous pall over what would become a rather shitty October, in retrospect.
The full year since has given me many changes and many challenges. I have dealt with and done a remarkable amount of things in the past year, from moving to another state and getting married to starting a completely different career. There is very little of the me from a year ago that still remains now, in most aspects anyhow. Comparing the two years is akin to a snake shedding its skin. While some of you may find it morbid that I'm using the anniversary of my sister's death as a milestone, and it is, it was also a turning point of sorts in my life -- the turning point upon when everything started to slowly begin changing.
Make no mistake, if you read my posts from a year ago I did mourn my sister's death, but I did so in a rather detached way. I didn't have much of a choice in the matter, really; I was hip-deep in the semester and I had never met or even spoken to the girl. That doesn't change the fact that she was flesh and blood, of course. I was shaken up indeed, though nothing about my life had changed. I tend to process death a lot differently than most people I know do. I'm the person who will cry at sad scenes in movies, and will cry when someone famous and/or I admired dies, but when someone normal dies, such as a friend or family member, I'm much of the attitude "yeah, well, that happens," and I go on with my life. I don't know why that is. I did not cry for my sister, but I did cry when George Carlin died. I came pretty close to crying when Robin Williams died. I don't know if this is a personality flaw or if I'm some sort of low-level functioning sociopath, or what.
Today starts my sixth week at work, and it feels like I've been there much, much longer than I have been. Again, my weekends go far too quickly and my weeks do not. In a few more weeks, I will be fully accustomed to the job and its duties right as I am thrust into the proverbial pit of hell over Halloween weekend when almost everyone will be out of the office -- meaning I'll have to do all of their work. That's part of why, as I mentioned in my last post here, I've been training on gatekeeping. I will not only have to be gatekeeper, but I will have to work as many issues as I can handle because nobody else will be there. Even a month out, the thought makes me shudder. The job is busy enough as it is when I'm doing my own work. I do not yet dread going to it, but I get the feeling that I will soon enough. The work is challenging and I learn something new every day, but you want to be bored shitless and stressed out of your skull at the same time, boy, this is the job for you. As I slap on my professional attitude every day I'm there, there's never been a day where I've not thought remember the paycheck, remember the paycheck at least five or six times. It is indeed a far cry from teaching college students three days a week. That was so much simpler, I had autonomy and I was actually in charge of something then. As I've probably mentioned before, I am now a corporate cog. I have job security, yes, but that's about it.
So, not all changes over the past year have been for the better...as you're probably gathering at this point.
Today it is storming. Well, at the moment, it's just raining hard. The rain started right as I was getting dressed and ready to go in to work, and I found about half an hour before I had to leave that Pete had yacked all over the couch in the living room...so that was fun to clean up. I used to love rain and storms -- for many, many years -- until I found that upon moving to Omaha, where I smoke on the porch outside, there's nothing to stop me from getting completely soaked. Therefore I dread rain and storms now when I'm at home.
Daisy, while I'm at work today, has a lot of stuff to take care of -- while cleaning last week, she found her passport, which will now allow her to change her name in the eyes of the federal government (read: the only place aside from work that she doesn't have my last name already). She also has to renew her car's registration, which expires today. It's 2:15 PM and she's still sleeping, so she'll have to wake up soon to do these things. Meanwhile, as mentioned above, I'll be in a cubicle until midnight because that's apparently my lot in life now if we want to be able to survive and pay the bills.
Do I sound bitter? That sounds bitter. I'm really not trying to be bitter about anything, but as most of you know, I tend to see the bad in everything much more than I see the good.
Anyway. This will continue later. I'm nowhere near done talking about life as of late, but I do have to go to work now.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
The Keymaster
Last night I made one of the (many) Transformers themes the ringtone on my iPhone, and it was the most exciting thing I've done all week.
No, seriously.
I've been working variable shifts at the office; they're training me on a new system/task, and because of that I have to be there when the regular person who does that is there so that I can get some on the job shadowing/training. This means I've been coming in and working 1-10PM most days. I don't really mind this to be perfectly honest, as it means I'll be getting off earlier than the usual, but my sleeping schedule has now readjusted itself to where no matter what, whether it's a weekday or weekend, I will awaken at 9-9:30 AM. This, this I mind. I don't function well in early morning daylight, and I still classify that as early morning. On Saturdays I will still work the 3-12 shift, but for the foreseeable future on weekdays, at least until my training/shadowing is complete, I'll be there 1-10.
As mentioned before, the job is mentally draining, and as I haven't worked a 5-day, 40-hour week in a long time, I come home at night, eat (if I haven't eaten yet), and crash within two hours or so. The weeks are very long, or at least seem very long most of the time, and when I get my two weekend days off they go very quickly and I can't really get anything accomplished during them. Then it's back to work for another five days in a row, repeat. Look, the money is good, the job itself is fine, and I really like the people I work with (including the wife, obviously) but it really feels like I can't enjoy any of my free time any more because there's so little of it and/or every time I clock in at work it feels like I've just left the place. I can't make any plans to do anything because I don't have the time or energy, and the one real day Daisy and I get together off every week (Monday) we have to fill with doing the things that we haven't had time to do throughout the rest of the week -- like the grocery shopping and cooking actual meals. Or paying bills. Or all of the above. There's no real downtime where there's not something to do that desperately needs to be done.
Yes, all of our bills are now being paid more easily than ever, but still.
The new system I'm training on at work is more of a process, and it's called "gatekeeping." It boils down to me being responsible for making sure everyone has an evenly distributed workload when I'm there, but it doesn't come with any managerial power or a higher salary or anything like that. It's just another aspect of the job. I will train on doing it off and on for about a month before I'll take it over fully when necessary once I know all of its ins-and-outs. About 1/3 of the people on our shift know how to gatekeep fully, and most everyone has at least some cursory experience of it. I'm being trained to do it as a full backup, which means when the normal gatekeeper(s) is/are not in for the day, I can jump in and run everything. Again, this is something that (overall) I'm fine with; having another skill under my belt at that place won't just be job security, but it'll more than likely eventually help me move up through the company. What I, and most of the rest of us in the office, do now is basically middle management. That's fine for the moment, and I do like my job for the most part, but obviously it's not something I plan (or want) to do forever.
In other news...
Daisy and I purchased a large dining room table last week. While I've been rather lax in updating this blog (based solely on the time I have available to do it and the lack of any breathing space during the work week), last Sunday afternoon we went to Nebraska Furniture Mart, picked one out, and bought it. We then set up the delivery for today, as we wouldn't have time to clean out/clear out the dining room before this past weekend, and yesterday we received the call that it would be delivered between 8 and 10AM today.
"That probably means we'll be their first delivery of the day," Daisy said.
In hindsight I should've realized that myself; we scheduled the delivery a week in advance, so of course we'd probably be the first on the docket.
This also meant that we had to empty out the dining room (still cluttered with boxes and bags of everything from not only the move, but from the wedding/bridal shower) and clear a patch for the delivery guys to bring in the table. This was a much longer, much harder task than I thought it would be. it also involved firing up the steam cleaner for the first time and scrubbing the floor under where the table would be, as we'll probably not have the chance to do that again until we eventually move out of this place.
We completed these tasks at roughly 4AM, then crashed. Daisy's phone rang at 8:05, telling her they'd be here in 10 minutes. She got up, let them in, they brought it all in and set it up, and then she went back to bed with me. She's still sleeping now.
As for the table itself, it's nice. As you know, Daisy and I have very different senses of taste, style, and decor when it comes to furnishing living spaces, and for the most part I just let her take the proverbial wheel on it. While I have opinions about different styles and colors, they really don't matter and it's not worth fighting over (remember folks, if you're married, pick your battles). We found the table -- over five feet long on its own, and it comes with three two-foot leaves and six chairs -- and the price was right, I liked the finish, Daisy liked it, so we got it. I'm not going to tell you how much it cost, because fuck, but I will say that yes, it was a good deal, and we now have a table and chairs, and we can finally have friends and the parents over to the house for dinners and the like.
Daisy has also been decorating the house for fall; she was able to find some affordable decorations at a few stores, including the Dollar Tree, and our place no longer has completely bare walls or the "minimalist with a lot of clutter spread around" feel. It's beginning to feel more like a home. I told her we should probably order our Christmas tree on Amazon soon, as we're likely to get a much better deal on it now instead of two months from now.
However, our next big purchase -- which will probably happen during the month of October, once we get paid again on the 3rd -- will be a new, larger television.
Let me explain. My flatscreen HDTV I bought in 2011 is fine, it's nice, yes. But it's also small. It was perfect for the house I had in Newton because it sat in the living room, the living room was small there, and I used it primarily for DVDs or football only -- which meant that during 90% of the year (roughly) it was off. But, when it was on, it was the perfect size, brightness, and loudness for that room. The same cannot be said for it now, as the living room here in Omaha is more than twice the size of the one I had in Newton, making a 22-inch widescreen HDTV look more like a computer monitor stuffed into a corner than an actual television set. And, while it was plenty loud enough for broadcast television, it is not loud enough for Netflix most of the time unless I crank the volume (it has shitty speakers in it).
So, because we're a dual-income household now and are doing decently well budgeting our finances, and because new TVs are super-cheap for what we need/want, that's going to be our next big purchase. We've already done some price searching/matching, and this is something that Daisy is going to let me handle on my own as I know what I personally am looking for. Basically it boils down to nothing below 46 inches, and with as many HDMI ports and AV inputs on it as possible. There is much more to it than that, of course, but those are the important things. I am not yet sure where we'll get one from, but it'll be several more weeks before we have to worry about that anyway.
With the table and chairs taken care of and the TV about to be taken care of, the last "big" thing right now I have to focus on, at least in the long run, is my car.
I mentioned back in June how my insurance dropped by a lot when I moved to Omaha and registered the Monte Carlo here; part of that is because I've kept the same insurance on the same car for multiple years, I'm sure, but part of it is also because I updated my account on their website to tell them that I'm only driving about 20 miles per week. This is true, actually -- it's about four miles to and from work, round trip, five days a week. As I was already planning on working where I am now even back in June when I renewed my insurance, this information remains accurate. Anyway, as I'm not putting anywhere near as many miles on the car as I was when I lived in Kansas, I'm saving a ton of money on gasoline and other maintenance on it.
However. All is not good.
Several times in the past few weeks, the car decided it just didn't want to start. Not the whole "turn the key and the starter whirrs and whirrs but won't start the car," no. That I would actually be okay with as long as after the second or third try it would fire up. No, this is, to be completely accurate, putting the key into the ignition, turning it part-way and having the lights inside come on like they're supposed to (showing me that there is indeed power in the car and the battery is fine) and then turning to start it and....nothing happens. Just silence. Nothing whirrs, nothing spins, nothing moves, nothing does anything.
Take the key out, put it back in, try again a few times. Still nothing. Try it one or two more times and the car remembers it's a car and fires up normally, with no dashboard error messages or lights or anything.
I...yeah, I don't know. I've got nothin'.
I'm sure this means something; I'm sure this means that an expensive part or component is starting to burn out or otherwise go bad, and this is my baby car trying to tell me or give me some sort of advance warning of it. Could be the starter, could be the alternator, could be any number of things. The car's been running and driving perfectly fine otherwise -- in fact, it feels like she's been running a lot better and/or more smoothly since I'm not putting 200 miles on her a week anymore -- but this isn't exactly a good sign. It has me a bit on edge, especially as I need the car five days a week now (compared to three or four, max, when I was teaching). Still, it's only done this a handful of times over the past month or so -- maybe five or six times at the most, and I've always been able to get her started after trying for a few minutes, so I don't know. I'd chalk it up to the car being old and temperamental as always, except it's not like I've been abusive to her or anything over the past several months.
"Could be anything," Daisy said. "You haven't had an oil change in how long?"
"It's not the oil, babe," I said. "The oil's not even low, nor is the coolant, and that's not going to stop a car from starting when the key is turned."
I thought it could be the spark plugs again, or the wires, but if it were I'd have the flashing light on my dashboard like I had before. So, yeah. I'm pretty much clueless here. It doesn't appear to be a battery issue, even though the battery is a few years old, as I will always have full power to the lights, fans, and other electrical stuff in the car even if it won't turn over, so....
Ahem. Anyway. So that's the next big thing I'm going to have to deal with. I told Daisy that I'd much rather buy a newer car outright off of Craigslist or someplace to avoid a car payment (read: yet another bill we'd have to pay every month), but that may not be possible as it's not like we're ever flush with cash up front. If we were, neither of us would have anything on our credit cards right now.
"If I have to go to a dealer," I said, "I'm going into one with very specific wants and needs -- I'm going to tell them I want certain makes/models between, say, 2001 and 2005, I'm not paying more than $3500 total for a vehicle, and I'm not paying any more than $150 a month."
"You can do that," she said.
I do have a shortlist of makes and models I'm interested in, starting with the upgraded version of the Monte Carlo I have now (or an Impala), as well as a few others. Older Firebirds/Camaros are on the list, but I also have smaller, more economical vehicles like the Toyota Echo and older Subaru Foresters. So, eh, it's not exactly a shortlist as much as I thought it was.
Anyway. That's about all that's going on right now. I shall update you when I have the time, but because of my work schedule and the need to do everything I can do on my days off because I have limited time to do so, I cannot yet tell you when that may be.
No, seriously.
I've been working variable shifts at the office; they're training me on a new system/task, and because of that I have to be there when the regular person who does that is there so that I can get some on the job shadowing/training. This means I've been coming in and working 1-10PM most days. I don't really mind this to be perfectly honest, as it means I'll be getting off earlier than the usual, but my sleeping schedule has now readjusted itself to where no matter what, whether it's a weekday or weekend, I will awaken at 9-9:30 AM. This, this I mind. I don't function well in early morning daylight, and I still classify that as early morning. On Saturdays I will still work the 3-12 shift, but for the foreseeable future on weekdays, at least until my training/shadowing is complete, I'll be there 1-10.
As mentioned before, the job is mentally draining, and as I haven't worked a 5-day, 40-hour week in a long time, I come home at night, eat (if I haven't eaten yet), and crash within two hours or so. The weeks are very long, or at least seem very long most of the time, and when I get my two weekend days off they go very quickly and I can't really get anything accomplished during them. Then it's back to work for another five days in a row, repeat. Look, the money is good, the job itself is fine, and I really like the people I work with (including the wife, obviously) but it really feels like I can't enjoy any of my free time any more because there's so little of it and/or every time I clock in at work it feels like I've just left the place. I can't make any plans to do anything because I don't have the time or energy, and the one real day Daisy and I get together off every week (Monday) we have to fill with doing the things that we haven't had time to do throughout the rest of the week -- like the grocery shopping and cooking actual meals. Or paying bills. Or all of the above. There's no real downtime where there's not something to do that desperately needs to be done.
Yes, all of our bills are now being paid more easily than ever, but still.
The new system I'm training on at work is more of a process, and it's called "gatekeeping." It boils down to me being responsible for making sure everyone has an evenly distributed workload when I'm there, but it doesn't come with any managerial power or a higher salary or anything like that. It's just another aspect of the job. I will train on doing it off and on for about a month before I'll take it over fully when necessary once I know all of its ins-and-outs. About 1/3 of the people on our shift know how to gatekeep fully, and most everyone has at least some cursory experience of it. I'm being trained to do it as a full backup, which means when the normal gatekeeper(s) is/are not in for the day, I can jump in and run everything. Again, this is something that (overall) I'm fine with; having another skill under my belt at that place won't just be job security, but it'll more than likely eventually help me move up through the company. What I, and most of the rest of us in the office, do now is basically middle management. That's fine for the moment, and I do like my job for the most part, but obviously it's not something I plan (or want) to do forever.
In other news...
Daisy and I purchased a large dining room table last week. While I've been rather lax in updating this blog (based solely on the time I have available to do it and the lack of any breathing space during the work week), last Sunday afternoon we went to Nebraska Furniture Mart, picked one out, and bought it. We then set up the delivery for today, as we wouldn't have time to clean out/clear out the dining room before this past weekend, and yesterday we received the call that it would be delivered between 8 and 10AM today.
"That probably means we'll be their first delivery of the day," Daisy said.
In hindsight I should've realized that myself; we scheduled the delivery a week in advance, so of course we'd probably be the first on the docket.
This also meant that we had to empty out the dining room (still cluttered with boxes and bags of everything from not only the move, but from the wedding/bridal shower) and clear a patch for the delivery guys to bring in the table. This was a much longer, much harder task than I thought it would be. it also involved firing up the steam cleaner for the first time and scrubbing the floor under where the table would be, as we'll probably not have the chance to do that again until we eventually move out of this place.
We completed these tasks at roughly 4AM, then crashed. Daisy's phone rang at 8:05, telling her they'd be here in 10 minutes. She got up, let them in, they brought it all in and set it up, and then she went back to bed with me. She's still sleeping now.
As for the table itself, it's nice. As you know, Daisy and I have very different senses of taste, style, and decor when it comes to furnishing living spaces, and for the most part I just let her take the proverbial wheel on it. While I have opinions about different styles and colors, they really don't matter and it's not worth fighting over (remember folks, if you're married, pick your battles). We found the table -- over five feet long on its own, and it comes with three two-foot leaves and six chairs -- and the price was right, I liked the finish, Daisy liked it, so we got it. I'm not going to tell you how much it cost, because fuck, but I will say that yes, it was a good deal, and we now have a table and chairs, and we can finally have friends and the parents over to the house for dinners and the like.
Daisy has also been decorating the house for fall; she was able to find some affordable decorations at a few stores, including the Dollar Tree, and our place no longer has completely bare walls or the "minimalist with a lot of clutter spread around" feel. It's beginning to feel more like a home. I told her we should probably order our Christmas tree on Amazon soon, as we're likely to get a much better deal on it now instead of two months from now.
However, our next big purchase -- which will probably happen during the month of October, once we get paid again on the 3rd -- will be a new, larger television.
Let me explain. My flatscreen HDTV I bought in 2011 is fine, it's nice, yes. But it's also small. It was perfect for the house I had in Newton because it sat in the living room, the living room was small there, and I used it primarily for DVDs or football only -- which meant that during 90% of the year (roughly) it was off. But, when it was on, it was the perfect size, brightness, and loudness for that room. The same cannot be said for it now, as the living room here in Omaha is more than twice the size of the one I had in Newton, making a 22-inch widescreen HDTV look more like a computer monitor stuffed into a corner than an actual television set. And, while it was plenty loud enough for broadcast television, it is not loud enough for Netflix most of the time unless I crank the volume (it has shitty speakers in it).
So, because we're a dual-income household now and are doing decently well budgeting our finances, and because new TVs are super-cheap for what we need/want, that's going to be our next big purchase. We've already done some price searching/matching, and this is something that Daisy is going to let me handle on my own as I know what I personally am looking for. Basically it boils down to nothing below 46 inches, and with as many HDMI ports and AV inputs on it as possible. There is much more to it than that, of course, but those are the important things. I am not yet sure where we'll get one from, but it'll be several more weeks before we have to worry about that anyway.
With the table and chairs taken care of and the TV about to be taken care of, the last "big" thing right now I have to focus on, at least in the long run, is my car.
I mentioned back in June how my insurance dropped by a lot when I moved to Omaha and registered the Monte Carlo here; part of that is because I've kept the same insurance on the same car for multiple years, I'm sure, but part of it is also because I updated my account on their website to tell them that I'm only driving about 20 miles per week. This is true, actually -- it's about four miles to and from work, round trip, five days a week. As I was already planning on working where I am now even back in June when I renewed my insurance, this information remains accurate. Anyway, as I'm not putting anywhere near as many miles on the car as I was when I lived in Kansas, I'm saving a ton of money on gasoline and other maintenance on it.
However. All is not good.
Several times in the past few weeks, the car decided it just didn't want to start. Not the whole "turn the key and the starter whirrs and whirrs but won't start the car," no. That I would actually be okay with as long as after the second or third try it would fire up. No, this is, to be completely accurate, putting the key into the ignition, turning it part-way and having the lights inside come on like they're supposed to (showing me that there is indeed power in the car and the battery is fine) and then turning to start it and....nothing happens. Just silence. Nothing whirrs, nothing spins, nothing moves, nothing does anything.
Take the key out, put it back in, try again a few times. Still nothing. Try it one or two more times and the car remembers it's a car and fires up normally, with no dashboard error messages or lights or anything.
I...yeah, I don't know. I've got nothin'.
I'm sure this means something; I'm sure this means that an expensive part or component is starting to burn out or otherwise go bad, and this is my baby car trying to tell me or give me some sort of advance warning of it. Could be the starter, could be the alternator, could be any number of things. The car's been running and driving perfectly fine otherwise -- in fact, it feels like she's been running a lot better and/or more smoothly since I'm not putting 200 miles on her a week anymore -- but this isn't exactly a good sign. It has me a bit on edge, especially as I need the car five days a week now (compared to three or four, max, when I was teaching). Still, it's only done this a handful of times over the past month or so -- maybe five or six times at the most, and I've always been able to get her started after trying for a few minutes, so I don't know. I'd chalk it up to the car being old and temperamental as always, except it's not like I've been abusive to her or anything over the past several months.
"Could be anything," Daisy said. "You haven't had an oil change in how long?"
"It's not the oil, babe," I said. "The oil's not even low, nor is the coolant, and that's not going to stop a car from starting when the key is turned."
I thought it could be the spark plugs again, or the wires, but if it were I'd have the flashing light on my dashboard like I had before. So, yeah. I'm pretty much clueless here. It doesn't appear to be a battery issue, even though the battery is a few years old, as I will always have full power to the lights, fans, and other electrical stuff in the car even if it won't turn over, so....
Ahem. Anyway. So that's the next big thing I'm going to have to deal with. I told Daisy that I'd much rather buy a newer car outright off of Craigslist or someplace to avoid a car payment (read: yet another bill we'd have to pay every month), but that may not be possible as it's not like we're ever flush with cash up front. If we were, neither of us would have anything on our credit cards right now.
"If I have to go to a dealer," I said, "I'm going into one with very specific wants and needs -- I'm going to tell them I want certain makes/models between, say, 2001 and 2005, I'm not paying more than $3500 total for a vehicle, and I'm not paying any more than $150 a month."
"You can do that," she said.
I do have a shortlist of makes and models I'm interested in, starting with the upgraded version of the Monte Carlo I have now (or an Impala), as well as a few others. Older Firebirds/Camaros are on the list, but I also have smaller, more economical vehicles like the Toyota Echo and older Subaru Foresters. So, eh, it's not exactly a shortlist as much as I thought it was.
Anyway. That's about all that's going on right now. I shall update you when I have the time, but because of my work schedule and the need to do everything I can do on my days off because I have limited time to do so, I cannot yet tell you when that may be.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Foreseeable Futures, Part II
Yesterday afternoon we went shopping at Gordman's. I ended up finding six or seven "business casual" workshirts I could wear to the office, several of them being green (the others were black, blue, or grey, which I can wear with pretty much anything). I'm not a big fan of bright colors anymore; whereas when I was teaching it was basically anything goes as a professor because I'd get admiration and respect from the class anyway, the same is not true in corporate jobs in the private sector. As I live in the shadow of my wife while working at that job, I also have proverbially larger shoes to fill than most other employees, and the last thing I want to do is stand out for any reason.
Yes, any reason. I doubt many of you have had the opportunity to work in the same office as your spouse, but let me tell you, it does create an interesting work dynamic. Learn things too quickly and excel at your job too quickly, and you'll both be singled out for favoritism, as logic would dictate that there's some handholding and extra training going on with you that hasn't been given to the other employees equally. Learn things too slowly and/or find yourself unable to grasp the job itself or its duties (or, conversely, screw up too much), and everyone thinks you're an idiot (and, by extension, they'll think my very intelligent wife married an idiot, which doesn't make her look good). No, until I'm comfortable in the work environment fully, and until I can learn all of the nuances of the internal office politics, I'm staying under the radar -- I'm showing up, clocking in, doing my job, and clocking out. Just because my wife works there and just because she's a supervisor doesn't make me special or any different than anyone else. Moreover, I don't deserve nor do I want special treatment. If I screw up, I don't want to be treated with kid gloves because of who I am -- I am independent and my own person, and my responsibility is my responsibility alone.
All I can do is attempt to keep my head above water, and do it even more when Daisy is not there working with me. Excelling when she and I aren't working together that particular day is fine -- for example, two of my five days this week (tomorrow and Wednesday) she has off. She normally works Wednesday, but took it off as her own Labor Day makeup holiday. She doesn't work today either as it's one of her normal days off.
Anyway.
So I now have work clothes -- or at least more of a variety of work clothes I can wear on a daily basis to my job. Two of the shirts are long-sleeved, even though i generally hate long-sleeved shirts that aren't hoodies. While I can wear hoodies/jackets/etc to work if necessary, dress code dictates that it's not work-appropriate enough attire to actually work in. Or something like that, anyway. Truthfully I didn't pay attention any more closely than I had to, and I wore one of my fleece zip-ups for my entire shift one day last week when it was cold and rainy. I'm getting the feeling that as long as you show up, do your work, and don't make waves...nobody really cares as long as you attempt to look decent.
I also got a new belt, some coffee, and a shaving/shower gel set from Gordman's as well. The one nearest to our house is the one we went to, and it's not the "good" one. I paid $10-15 for each of my shirts there and everything I got was on clearance -- the one closer to the parents' place has a bigger selection and I was getting shirts there last year for teaching outfits for $5-10 each at the most.
After the Gordman's trip we went to the Dollar Tree, where Daisy was able to find some stuff to decorate the house for fall. She got a wreath and some fake leaves, as well as two little scarecrow-like figures, and she's going to hang them up and decorate the interior of our home. I asked her why.
"What do you mean?"
"The point of decorations is for people to see them," I said. "Nobody is ever in our house but us. Exterior decorations I'm fine with, but interior decorations for fall/Halloween? Eh, what's the point?"
She and I don't see eye to eye on this, of course, but whatever makes her happy makes me happy. I've learned to pick my battles and not put up a fight when it's about her doing something which makes her happy.
Mind you, we did get a lot of other stuff at the Dollar Tree, stuff I/we needed as I haven't actually been to a Dollar Tree for real shopping since I was living in Newton. I shop for bargains -- if there's something I can get for $1 that would cost me $3 or $4 at Walmart for the same thing, I just get it there. That includes stuff like deodorant, shaving cream/razors, my allergy medicine, garbage bags, etc.
"I want to go to the mall," she told me while we were Dollar-Tree-shopping.
"Of course," I said. I hadn't been to the mall since, oh, last fall? Before Christmas? Possibly last summer -- I can't remember, really.
Apparently there was a big sale (and she had a good coupon as well) at Torrid, which (if you're not aware) is like the girly, plus-sized version of Hot Topic without most of the glitz and glam. A large chunk of Daisy's wardrobe comes from Torrid, something I support because she looks fucking hot in almost everything she buys there. So yes, I'm fine with tagging along with her to the mall and to Torrid. She found a shirt she wanted and an embossed peacoat jacket that looked so good on her that if she hadn't bought it, I would've bought it for her that very second in a heartbeat.
Not every man goes to Torrid with his wife.
Ahem. Anyway. Afterwards, we wandered the mall for a bit. I found two t-shirts in JCPenney, one a Superman shirt and the other a John Lennon shirt. At the last remaining Suncoast store I've seen in operation anywhere in the past fifteen years or so, I purchased Pacific Rim on DVD for $7.99. Daisy, not to be outdone, got herself some stuff from Bath & Body Works (where I also picked up a new body scrubber for my shower). The rest of the trip, however, was a bust -- I wanted to see if Old Navy had anything I needed or wanted, and they did, but none of it was in my size or it was too expensive. I was also in there to look to see if they had their winter coats out yet, as I'd found a peacoat there a few years ago that I loved and would replace the one I have now (which is falling apart after about four years of daily wear in the wintertime). Then we came home.
We do still have to go grocery shopping tonight as soon as I get home from work, though -- we were too tired last night and had been on our feet all day running around stores and the mall. I told Daisy to be ready as soon as I get off at midnight, because she'll be home and will be awake -- and the clock, after that, is ticking until I'll absolutely need to eat and pass out. While I could go shopping myself without her, there's probably a fair amount of things she needs, and it's something we generally do together due to, well, the amount of stuff we get. Tonight it'll be a fast, but big, trip -- we should've gone two nights ago and we didn't, and now the stuff I needed before I desperately need now because i'm either out of it or very close to being out. I also know Daisy doesn't want to spend any more time shopping at midnight than she has to, and I don't blame her because I don't either. It's my first day back at work for the week and I'm super-tired already; who knows how I'll feel at midnight.
Yes, any reason. I doubt many of you have had the opportunity to work in the same office as your spouse, but let me tell you, it does create an interesting work dynamic. Learn things too quickly and excel at your job too quickly, and you'll both be singled out for favoritism, as logic would dictate that there's some handholding and extra training going on with you that hasn't been given to the other employees equally. Learn things too slowly and/or find yourself unable to grasp the job itself or its duties (or, conversely, screw up too much), and everyone thinks you're an idiot (and, by extension, they'll think my very intelligent wife married an idiot, which doesn't make her look good). No, until I'm comfortable in the work environment fully, and until I can learn all of the nuances of the internal office politics, I'm staying under the radar -- I'm showing up, clocking in, doing my job, and clocking out. Just because my wife works there and just because she's a supervisor doesn't make me special or any different than anyone else. Moreover, I don't deserve nor do I want special treatment. If I screw up, I don't want to be treated with kid gloves because of who I am -- I am independent and my own person, and my responsibility is my responsibility alone.
All I can do is attempt to keep my head above water, and do it even more when Daisy is not there working with me. Excelling when she and I aren't working together that particular day is fine -- for example, two of my five days this week (tomorrow and Wednesday) she has off. She normally works Wednesday, but took it off as her own Labor Day makeup holiday. She doesn't work today either as it's one of her normal days off.
Anyway.
So I now have work clothes -- or at least more of a variety of work clothes I can wear on a daily basis to my job. Two of the shirts are long-sleeved, even though i generally hate long-sleeved shirts that aren't hoodies. While I can wear hoodies/jackets/etc to work if necessary, dress code dictates that it's not work-appropriate enough attire to actually work in. Or something like that, anyway. Truthfully I didn't pay attention any more closely than I had to, and I wore one of my fleece zip-ups for my entire shift one day last week when it was cold and rainy. I'm getting the feeling that as long as you show up, do your work, and don't make waves...nobody really cares as long as you attempt to look decent.
I also got a new belt, some coffee, and a shaving/shower gel set from Gordman's as well. The one nearest to our house is the one we went to, and it's not the "good" one. I paid $10-15 for each of my shirts there and everything I got was on clearance -- the one closer to the parents' place has a bigger selection and I was getting shirts there last year for teaching outfits for $5-10 each at the most.
After the Gordman's trip we went to the Dollar Tree, where Daisy was able to find some stuff to decorate the house for fall. She got a wreath and some fake leaves, as well as two little scarecrow-like figures, and she's going to hang them up and decorate the interior of our home. I asked her why.
"What do you mean?"
"The point of decorations is for people to see them," I said. "Nobody is ever in our house but us. Exterior decorations I'm fine with, but interior decorations for fall/Halloween? Eh, what's the point?"
She and I don't see eye to eye on this, of course, but whatever makes her happy makes me happy. I've learned to pick my battles and not put up a fight when it's about her doing something which makes her happy.
Mind you, we did get a lot of other stuff at the Dollar Tree, stuff I/we needed as I haven't actually been to a Dollar Tree for real shopping since I was living in Newton. I shop for bargains -- if there's something I can get for $1 that would cost me $3 or $4 at Walmart for the same thing, I just get it there. That includes stuff like deodorant, shaving cream/razors, my allergy medicine, garbage bags, etc.
"I want to go to the mall," she told me while we were Dollar-Tree-shopping.
"Of course," I said. I hadn't been to the mall since, oh, last fall? Before Christmas? Possibly last summer -- I can't remember, really.
Apparently there was a big sale (and she had a good coupon as well) at Torrid, which (if you're not aware) is like the girly, plus-sized version of Hot Topic without most of the glitz and glam. A large chunk of Daisy's wardrobe comes from Torrid, something I support because she looks fucking hot in almost everything she buys there. So yes, I'm fine with tagging along with her to the mall and to Torrid. She found a shirt she wanted and an embossed peacoat jacket that looked so good on her that if she hadn't bought it, I would've bought it for her that very second in a heartbeat.
Not every man goes to Torrid with his wife.
Ahem. Anyway. Afterwards, we wandered the mall for a bit. I found two t-shirts in JCPenney, one a Superman shirt and the other a John Lennon shirt. At the last remaining Suncoast store I've seen in operation anywhere in the past fifteen years or so, I purchased Pacific Rim on DVD for $7.99. Daisy, not to be outdone, got herself some stuff from Bath & Body Works (where I also picked up a new body scrubber for my shower). The rest of the trip, however, was a bust -- I wanted to see if Old Navy had anything I needed or wanted, and they did, but none of it was in my size or it was too expensive. I was also in there to look to see if they had their winter coats out yet, as I'd found a peacoat there a few years ago that I loved and would replace the one I have now (which is falling apart after about four years of daily wear in the wintertime). Then we came home.
We do still have to go grocery shopping tonight as soon as I get home from work, though -- we were too tired last night and had been on our feet all day running around stores and the mall. I told Daisy to be ready as soon as I get off at midnight, because she'll be home and will be awake -- and the clock, after that, is ticking until I'll absolutely need to eat and pass out. While I could go shopping myself without her, there's probably a fair amount of things she needs, and it's something we generally do together due to, well, the amount of stuff we get. Tonight it'll be a fast, but big, trip -- we should've gone two nights ago and we didn't, and now the stuff I needed before I desperately need now because i'm either out of it or very close to being out. I also know Daisy doesn't want to spend any more time shopping at midnight than she has to, and I don't blame her because I don't either. It's my first day back at work for the week and I'm super-tired already; who knows how I'll feel at midnight.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Foreseeable Futures
I have now been working my new corporate job for a total of three weeks -- two weeks of training first, and this past week I've been on the floor doing my actual job.
This, of course, is why I haven't updated the blog in the past three weeks. No, I'm not dead; I am, in fact, very much alive and more financially stable than I've been in a long, long time.
As for the job itself, I can't really talk much about it. Legally, I mean. I had to sign a bunch of nondisclosure agreements when I took the job, as it is a corporate job in which I'm dealing with and working with/for very high-profile customers and accounts...and that's about all I can really say about it. I am little more than a middleman (in fact, I've been told that most of the job is "middle management") between those accounts and the massive corporation I work for as a business contractor of sorts. That's about as in-detail as I can go.
Everything I was told about the position is correct, however -- it is not necessarily a difficult job, but it is a very detail-oriented and somewhat stressful one. I'm seeing that already, even after only working one week of my normal shifts. And no, I've never done anything like this before, so it comes a little less naturally to me than to people who have worked in similar environments for years. However, each day I'm learning more and I'm able to work more quickly and naturally. In another week or two of experience at it, I'll be on par with pretty much everyone else in the office.
After all, this is what I wanted, right? A desk job in an office. Well, I got what I was looking for, at least. And, as you may already know, I get to work with the wife.
My shifts are staggered with hers, and I took second shift (3PM to midnight) when it was offered specifically for that reason. I work that shift Tuesday through Saturday. Daisy works the overnight shift Wednesday through Saturday. Four of my five at-work days, I will work more than half my shift with her. I am not working tonight, even though it is a Saturday night, because I got tonight as a paid day off to make up for Labor Day, which is a day I would've had off regardless as it was a Monday. Yeah, this company does that sort of nice thing for its employees -- anytime there's a paid holiday off that I wouldn't work anyway because of my schedule, I'll get a makeup day for it sometime during the rest of that week so that everything balances out. So does Daisy, technically, even though as a manager/supervisor she's a 24/7 employee. She's taking hers later this coming week, I think, as she can do that whenever she wants since she's fully salaried and not hourly (read: she doesn't clock in and out like the rest of us do).
As I've mentioned before, though Daisy is a supervisor there, she is not my supervisor. Technically she can't be, as it would be construed as favoritism/nepotism. There are several "teams" in the office led by three different supervisors, and I'm under one of the other ones. We also, of course, have to be professional in the office even though we're husband and wife, so this basically means we have to act like strangers in front of one another despite the fact that yes, we do sleep in the same bed together at home. I'm fine with this, though it's yet another new dynamic to me -- just because she's my wife doesn't mean I can talk to her and act like she's my wife at work; because she is a supervisor, even though she's not mine, she does technically rank above me and I have to treat her as a superior just as I would any other supervisor at any other job. This is not without its difficulties, but I think I've managed to deal with it fine. I can be professional and quite serious when I need to be, especially in a working environment.
Really, my goal in my new job is just to do well; Daisy now gets to see that firsthand. It's always been my goal in every job I've ever worked to do the best possible job I can do in my position and to be eager and look forward to going to work because it's another opportunity I have to learn something new and improve myself. That applies more to this position than any other position I've ever worked anywhere, I think. As I mentioned, there is a learning curve to the job -- some people take to it faster than others. I know people working there now who are picking up the ball and running with it quite well, and I know people who are taking a long time to learn all of the systems we have to use. I've been told I'm good, and I've been told I'm learning quickly, but really I don't think I'm doing any better or worse than anyone else at this point. I'm still new, and I'm still learning processes and procedures in the position every day. It's hard to memorize them all until I've been "on the floor" and experienced for longer than I have been now.
At the same time, I've thought in the back of my head already that this is not a job I want to do my entire life from this point forward, but it's actually somewhat fun (thus far) and challenging for me, which is something I haven't experienced in a long time. Teaching, for example, came naturally for me. It was not hard, it was not a challenge, even though it was very time-and-work-intensive at times. But, here's the thing -- this company has incredible opportunities for advancement, and it's a company that's never going away (it's headquartered here in Omaha, for one, and for two it's getting bigger every year). This is a position that -- as long as I can do the work and do it well -- pays me extremely well compared to any other job I've ever had, and in six months I qualify to begin moving upwards through the company if there are positions available. That's what Daisy did; she started out in the position I'm in now, applied for the supervisor position when she could, worked it on an interim basis for a few months, and got it officially shortly after our wedding.
So, if I like the company and enjoy the work I do for the company, I see myself working there in some capacity for the foreseeable future. If that means I eventually move up through the ranks, then so be it. If not, at least I have a position that pays me really well for what I do. Make no mistake, I am incredibly thankful I have this job. No, it's not teaching, but this actually feels like the beginning of a career for me -- and I haven't felt like that since before graduate school when I was working for the newspaper.
Ahem. Anyway.
A lot of little things have happened in the past three weeks, not all of them work-related of course (though it does seem like I'm there more often than I'm at home). It's been really stormy and nasty most days, and when it hasn't it's been either 90 degrees or 50 degrees with no real rhyme or reason to the weather patterns. As a result, my allergies have gone fucking nuts yet again. No wonder Daisy's doctors told her she was allergic to Nebraska -- apparently so am I, because my allergies won't go away. Like, ever. Oh, sure, I'll have some good days where they won't bother me that much, but I'll also have days where they systematically crush me and I can't breathe or go more than five minutes without blowing my nose. Let me tell you, that's fun to deal with when you're busy at work all night.
A week into my training, I went out to the car to go in one morning only to find that my car had been broken into and all of my stuff inside the car (read: what few things I've ever kept in the car) were all scattered and in disarray.
No worries, there was no damage to the car. Why? Well, it's probably because I can't lock my doors. I mean, I can, but I wouldn't be able to get back into the car afterwards because I don't have (and have never had) the door key. Yeah, my car is that old, so old that it has two different keys -- one for the ignition and one for the trunk and doors. I never got the latter key when I bought the car. Seriously. So for the past several years I've owned and driven my Monte Carlo, no matter where I've gone I've never locked the doors.
Whoever "broke into" my car rifled through my stuff, unsuccessfully tried to tear out my (non-working) stereo, and they took my really old GPS that was about useless and I got on Amazon for $30 or so used several years ago, but that's it. I'd even forgotten that I'd had the GPS in the car because I haven't used it in so long. My insurance cards and registration was still there, and the car itself was and is fine, so eh. Daisy called to report it to our apartment's management office (as it happened less than, oh, 40 feet from the building), and all they told her on the phone was "Oh, well, we haven't had any other reports."
As if that helps me or solves anything, right?
There's no use to file a police report or anything; I don't care about the GPS and there's nothing the cops could do anyhow -- other than tell me "well, we'll make a report, but it's not like you'll ever get your GPS back." It's just the principle of the matter that pisses me off. I told Daisy that if the thieves really wanted to fuck me over, they could've left the door ajar, as that would've killed the battery. We do have a security detail that does sweeps of the properties every night at least once or twice, but as the thieves were probably in and out of my car in less than 30 seconds, that doesn't help much.
I got my first paycheck yesterday, and Daisy got paid as well -- and we immediately began paying bills. Mine is a paper check right now as the direct deposit doesn't kick in until the second check, so I have to deposit it physically at the bank on Monday. However, eh, not a big deal. I completely paid off my Amazon Chase card tonight -- the card with the highest interest rate -- and over the next two months or so I'll be paying the others down and/or off completely as well. This weekend, on the days we have off together, we need to do our normal grocery shopping as well as run a few other errands -- such as hitting up the local Gordman's to see if I can get some workshirts with green in them. Literal green, as in, one of the colors in the shirt -- Dad gave me a ton of his old slacks and pants when he lost a lot of weight earlier this year, and many of those pants are a dark forest green. I have almost no workshirts with green in them, which means that while I look damned good in the pants, none of my "business casual" work attire will actually match them.
Yes, the dress code at work is "business casual" and it is fairly strict. Dress shoes every day -- no tennis shoes or other shoes/sandals of any sort. Shirts must have a collar. No jeans (except on Fridays). Slacks or khakis of any sort is fine, but no cargo pants. Women must wear hosiery with all skirts and dresses. Etc. Stuff like that. However, I've found that a lot of people don't necessarily stick completely to the dress code -- they only stick to it just enough to get by. For example, the dress code also states that all shirts must be tucked in. To that, I say "well, good luck." Most of my shirts won't tuck in (they're either not long enough or they won't fit under my belt/waistline and still allow me to button my pants), or they'll immediately pull out when I make any movement of my body above my waist. I've not once tucked a shirt in at my new job, neither in training nor in my actual position, and nobody's said a word to me about it. I'm not bringing it up if nobody else does.
I'm still getting used to my iPhone -- I'm a lot more comfortable with it now than I was before, and I know how to do/use most of the things on it, but I don't really mess with it that much. It's a phone, and I hate phones as it is. Today I was frustrated with it because you can't download files to it (unless they're, say, picture attachments) no matter what you do. For example, I sent an mp3 to myself this afternoon, an mp3 that I had edited and had turned into a ringtone. I can play it, yes, but I can't download it from my email and set it as my ringtone. You can't even turn a song you've purchased -- a song you own -- into a ringtone and save it that way. Apple won't let you. Can you buy ringtones from them and have them save to your phone? Of course. Want to do it yourself? Sorry, you're shit out of luck. There are apparently workarounds for it, but all of them involve installing iTunes on your computer and editing your own ringtones through that, then sending them to your phone, where Apple will apparently "recognize" them somehow and they'll work. Yeah, no, I'm not wading through all of that bullshit. To put this into perspective, I could download and set any ringtone I wanted, any ringtone I'd gotten from anywhere, on my Motorola Razr V3, and that was seven years ago. Want to do that on an iPhone? Sorry, denied.
While I love my phone and I love what it can and does do, it's little things like that which piss me off. I get super-irritated about little things in all walks of life though, as you have probably gathered by this point.
On that note, that's about all that's going on right now. I'll continue to update when I can, though with my new schedule I'm not sure how often that will be. Is it possible I won't write another post here for three more weeks? Yes, but it's also possible that I'll write another one tomorrow.
This, of course, is why I haven't updated the blog in the past three weeks. No, I'm not dead; I am, in fact, very much alive and more financially stable than I've been in a long, long time.
As for the job itself, I can't really talk much about it. Legally, I mean. I had to sign a bunch of nondisclosure agreements when I took the job, as it is a corporate job in which I'm dealing with and working with/for very high-profile customers and accounts...and that's about all I can really say about it. I am little more than a middleman (in fact, I've been told that most of the job is "middle management") between those accounts and the massive corporation I work for as a business contractor of sorts. That's about as in-detail as I can go.
Everything I was told about the position is correct, however -- it is not necessarily a difficult job, but it is a very detail-oriented and somewhat stressful one. I'm seeing that already, even after only working one week of my normal shifts. And no, I've never done anything like this before, so it comes a little less naturally to me than to people who have worked in similar environments for years. However, each day I'm learning more and I'm able to work more quickly and naturally. In another week or two of experience at it, I'll be on par with pretty much everyone else in the office.
After all, this is what I wanted, right? A desk job in an office. Well, I got what I was looking for, at least. And, as you may already know, I get to work with the wife.
My shifts are staggered with hers, and I took second shift (3PM to midnight) when it was offered specifically for that reason. I work that shift Tuesday through Saturday. Daisy works the overnight shift Wednesday through Saturday. Four of my five at-work days, I will work more than half my shift with her. I am not working tonight, even though it is a Saturday night, because I got tonight as a paid day off to make up for Labor Day, which is a day I would've had off regardless as it was a Monday. Yeah, this company does that sort of nice thing for its employees -- anytime there's a paid holiday off that I wouldn't work anyway because of my schedule, I'll get a makeup day for it sometime during the rest of that week so that everything balances out. So does Daisy, technically, even though as a manager/supervisor she's a 24/7 employee. She's taking hers later this coming week, I think, as she can do that whenever she wants since she's fully salaried and not hourly (read: she doesn't clock in and out like the rest of us do).
As I've mentioned before, though Daisy is a supervisor there, she is not my supervisor. Technically she can't be, as it would be construed as favoritism/nepotism. There are several "teams" in the office led by three different supervisors, and I'm under one of the other ones. We also, of course, have to be professional in the office even though we're husband and wife, so this basically means we have to act like strangers in front of one another despite the fact that yes, we do sleep in the same bed together at home. I'm fine with this, though it's yet another new dynamic to me -- just because she's my wife doesn't mean I can talk to her and act like she's my wife at work; because she is a supervisor, even though she's not mine, she does technically rank above me and I have to treat her as a superior just as I would any other supervisor at any other job. This is not without its difficulties, but I think I've managed to deal with it fine. I can be professional and quite serious when I need to be, especially in a working environment.
Really, my goal in my new job is just to do well; Daisy now gets to see that firsthand. It's always been my goal in every job I've ever worked to do the best possible job I can do in my position and to be eager and look forward to going to work because it's another opportunity I have to learn something new and improve myself. That applies more to this position than any other position I've ever worked anywhere, I think. As I mentioned, there is a learning curve to the job -- some people take to it faster than others. I know people working there now who are picking up the ball and running with it quite well, and I know people who are taking a long time to learn all of the systems we have to use. I've been told I'm good, and I've been told I'm learning quickly, but really I don't think I'm doing any better or worse than anyone else at this point. I'm still new, and I'm still learning processes and procedures in the position every day. It's hard to memorize them all until I've been "on the floor" and experienced for longer than I have been now.
At the same time, I've thought in the back of my head already that this is not a job I want to do my entire life from this point forward, but it's actually somewhat fun (thus far) and challenging for me, which is something I haven't experienced in a long time. Teaching, for example, came naturally for me. It was not hard, it was not a challenge, even though it was very time-and-work-intensive at times. But, here's the thing -- this company has incredible opportunities for advancement, and it's a company that's never going away (it's headquartered here in Omaha, for one, and for two it's getting bigger every year). This is a position that -- as long as I can do the work and do it well -- pays me extremely well compared to any other job I've ever had, and in six months I qualify to begin moving upwards through the company if there are positions available. That's what Daisy did; she started out in the position I'm in now, applied for the supervisor position when she could, worked it on an interim basis for a few months, and got it officially shortly after our wedding.
So, if I like the company and enjoy the work I do for the company, I see myself working there in some capacity for the foreseeable future. If that means I eventually move up through the ranks, then so be it. If not, at least I have a position that pays me really well for what I do. Make no mistake, I am incredibly thankful I have this job. No, it's not teaching, but this actually feels like the beginning of a career for me -- and I haven't felt like that since before graduate school when I was working for the newspaper.
Ahem. Anyway.
A lot of little things have happened in the past three weeks, not all of them work-related of course (though it does seem like I'm there more often than I'm at home). It's been really stormy and nasty most days, and when it hasn't it's been either 90 degrees or 50 degrees with no real rhyme or reason to the weather patterns. As a result, my allergies have gone fucking nuts yet again. No wonder Daisy's doctors told her she was allergic to Nebraska -- apparently so am I, because my allergies won't go away. Like, ever. Oh, sure, I'll have some good days where they won't bother me that much, but I'll also have days where they systematically crush me and I can't breathe or go more than five minutes without blowing my nose. Let me tell you, that's fun to deal with when you're busy at work all night.
A week into my training, I went out to the car to go in one morning only to find that my car had been broken into and all of my stuff inside the car (read: what few things I've ever kept in the car) were all scattered and in disarray.
No worries, there was no damage to the car. Why? Well, it's probably because I can't lock my doors. I mean, I can, but I wouldn't be able to get back into the car afterwards because I don't have (and have never had) the door key. Yeah, my car is that old, so old that it has two different keys -- one for the ignition and one for the trunk and doors. I never got the latter key when I bought the car. Seriously. So for the past several years I've owned and driven my Monte Carlo, no matter where I've gone I've never locked the doors.
Whoever "broke into" my car rifled through my stuff, unsuccessfully tried to tear out my (non-working) stereo, and they took my really old GPS that was about useless and I got on Amazon for $30 or so used several years ago, but that's it. I'd even forgotten that I'd had the GPS in the car because I haven't used it in so long. My insurance cards and registration was still there, and the car itself was and is fine, so eh. Daisy called to report it to our apartment's management office (as it happened less than, oh, 40 feet from the building), and all they told her on the phone was "Oh, well, we haven't had any other reports."
As if that helps me or solves anything, right?
There's no use to file a police report or anything; I don't care about the GPS and there's nothing the cops could do anyhow -- other than tell me "well, we'll make a report, but it's not like you'll ever get your GPS back." It's just the principle of the matter that pisses me off. I told Daisy that if the thieves really wanted to fuck me over, they could've left the door ajar, as that would've killed the battery. We do have a security detail that does sweeps of the properties every night at least once or twice, but as the thieves were probably in and out of my car in less than 30 seconds, that doesn't help much.
I got my first paycheck yesterday, and Daisy got paid as well -- and we immediately began paying bills. Mine is a paper check right now as the direct deposit doesn't kick in until the second check, so I have to deposit it physically at the bank on Monday. However, eh, not a big deal. I completely paid off my Amazon Chase card tonight -- the card with the highest interest rate -- and over the next two months or so I'll be paying the others down and/or off completely as well. This weekend, on the days we have off together, we need to do our normal grocery shopping as well as run a few other errands -- such as hitting up the local Gordman's to see if I can get some workshirts with green in them. Literal green, as in, one of the colors in the shirt -- Dad gave me a ton of his old slacks and pants when he lost a lot of weight earlier this year, and many of those pants are a dark forest green. I have almost no workshirts with green in them, which means that while I look damned good in the pants, none of my "business casual" work attire will actually match them.
Yes, the dress code at work is "business casual" and it is fairly strict. Dress shoes every day -- no tennis shoes or other shoes/sandals of any sort. Shirts must have a collar. No jeans (except on Fridays). Slacks or khakis of any sort is fine, but no cargo pants. Women must wear hosiery with all skirts and dresses. Etc. Stuff like that. However, I've found that a lot of people don't necessarily stick completely to the dress code -- they only stick to it just enough to get by. For example, the dress code also states that all shirts must be tucked in. To that, I say "well, good luck." Most of my shirts won't tuck in (they're either not long enough or they won't fit under my belt/waistline and still allow me to button my pants), or they'll immediately pull out when I make any movement of my body above my waist. I've not once tucked a shirt in at my new job, neither in training nor in my actual position, and nobody's said a word to me about it. I'm not bringing it up if nobody else does.
I'm still getting used to my iPhone -- I'm a lot more comfortable with it now than I was before, and I know how to do/use most of the things on it, but I don't really mess with it that much. It's a phone, and I hate phones as it is. Today I was frustrated with it because you can't download files to it (unless they're, say, picture attachments) no matter what you do. For example, I sent an mp3 to myself this afternoon, an mp3 that I had edited and had turned into a ringtone. I can play it, yes, but I can't download it from my email and set it as my ringtone. You can't even turn a song you've purchased -- a song you own -- into a ringtone and save it that way. Apple won't let you. Can you buy ringtones from them and have them save to your phone? Of course. Want to do it yourself? Sorry, you're shit out of luck. There are apparently workarounds for it, but all of them involve installing iTunes on your computer and editing your own ringtones through that, then sending them to your phone, where Apple will apparently "recognize" them somehow and they'll work. Yeah, no, I'm not wading through all of that bullshit. To put this into perspective, I could download and set any ringtone I wanted, any ringtone I'd gotten from anywhere, on my Motorola Razr V3, and that was seven years ago. Want to do that on an iPhone? Sorry, denied.
While I love my phone and I love what it can and does do, it's little things like that which piss me off. I get super-irritated about little things in all walks of life though, as you have probably gathered by this point.
On that note, that's about all that's going on right now. I'll continue to update when I can, though with my new schedule I'm not sure how often that will be. Is it possible I won't write another post here for three more weeks? Yes, but it's also possible that I'll write another one tomorrow.
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